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kidney disease

2015.09.15

Kidney function declines with age in almost everyone, and the proportion of people older than 70 with glomerular filtration rate (G.F.R.) readings below 60 approaches 50 percent, studies have found. As the older adult population grows, the prevalence may rise even higher.

Yet the proportion of older people who will ever reach kidney failure, and thus need dialysis or a transplant, remains very low. People don’t turn to dialysis until their G.F.R. sinks much further, to about 10. In the great majority of older adults, that will never happen.

The lifetime risk of kidney failure in the United States is 3.6 percent for whites and 8 percent for African-Americans. So, Why are we even thinking about this as a disease? By using the same standards for everyone, “We’re labeling, medicalizing and victimizing a substantial fraction of the elderly population,